She Sidesteps
by tyrantmoves
Summary: Maybe she's still the selfish, lost soul she'd been so proud of becoming. Maybe that's who she has to be, to face him again.
A/N: Posted on AO3 as well. This a super raw, rough piece I put together in an hour that was festering in my brain and needed to be let out. It's also in a different writing style than my typical and I wanted to test it out. I tried to follow the canon as closely as I could but took some liberties. Let me know what you think!

Mostly this is to help me cope with the season two finale of Rebels. I think I am not alone in this desperate need to patch raw wounds.

* * *

The first night, she gets so incredibly drunk, the fire of Mandalorian whiskey searing her tongue and her throat, second only to the vomit that will burn it the next morning. She pukes over a dirty, broken toilet in an anonymous hotel room, not sure how she got there and not particularly concerned, either.

She hears her voice. "Very classy, pet," the cruel damsel croons. Of course it's her.

"Why didn't," Ahsoka pauses to retch again, her whole stomach lifting and trying to jump out of her throat. "You just kill me?"

Ventress walks closer, pushes back the curtain that hangs where a door used to be at the bathroom entrance. "You looked like you had beaten me to it."

Ahsoka scowls, leans an elbow on the rim of the toilet, not even thinking about how unhygienic and disgusting and disgraceful her behaviour is right now. She's just so relieved to have a repository for last night's commiseration that isn't another bouncer, or the street side, or the armour of a surprised clone trooper imploring, " _Comman -_ oh, um, Ahsoka ... what are you doing? Why are you with _her_?"

Ahsoka still isn't sure. Ventress tells her why after tossing a water bottle at her.

She's got a job for her.

\

Sometimes, Ahsoka wonders why it took her so long to start using blasters. Sure, lightsabers were elegant but blasters had _power_ and _punch_ and the handy ability to set them to stun, too, when she's retrieving a live target.

It's not even that hard; she's amazed the clankers always seemed to miss. So much for artificial intelligence being superior, she thinks with a snort, leaning around a crate and taking aim. She doesn't even have to, really, because she could _feel_ where the guards were moving before she even looked. She was already aimed by the time she emerged, sunset skin flushed and eyes narrowed.

She's still not sure why she's here, months later, helping her. Mostly so she can eat and sleep somewhere. To jump on a ship and never give up the stars.

She sees Ventress pull a knife - a real knife, nothing flashy like a lightsaber - against the neck of an unconscious guard. Ahsoka rushes over, knocking her hand down, hissing, "What are you _doing_? He's already down! I stunned him!"

"This isn't our first run in," Ventress replies calmly back, folding her arms. "I told him I'd stay off his turf a few months ago -"

"And you brought us back here?!" Ahsoka exclaims, annoyed. "What were you thinking? If you promised ..."

"Then he's a fool for believing," Ventress snaps, nostrils flaring. She sweeps her hair back that's been growing in, bright blue and jagged. "He'll be angry and come looking for us. Let me deal with this now."

Ahsoka moves protectively in front of the guard, gun raised. "No. We came for the goods - we get them and go. No deaths, Ventress." She lowers the gun, wary. " _Please_."

Ventress thinks for a moment, studying her. Then she nods curtly and walks away, ducking into an air shaft to the inside of the base.

Ahsoka lets out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It occurs to her, for the first time, that maybe this is why she's still here.

\

It kills her, watching the news. Watching the battles happening that should have been her glory, her moment, her bowing to the Chancellor and graciously turning down medals ( _that's not the Jedi way, Chancellor ...)_. She misses the _war_.

She tells as much to Ventress, one day, over strong Gungan beers and cigars in a fittingly swampy, musty pub. They just smuggled three crates of generators to Hondo and got _paid_. After splitting the cost of repairing the ship, they've got money to burn and a shitty outpost town to light the fire.

"Me too," Ventress surprises her by answering glumly. They're both pleasantly drunk and the bartender just lit a merrily crackling fire as the night gets chillier.

"I just miss the _fight_ ," Ahsoka says emphatically, cutting the end off her cigar with a pocket knife. "I miss knowing what side I was on, and pushing, no sleep, all sweat and blood, ready to give everything. I miss the _certainty_ , you know?" She lights the cigar, takes a huff, hands it to Ventress.

"You're on _your_ side now, pet," Ventress replies with a yawn, accepting the cigar.

"No, I'm on _our_ side," Ahsoka replies firmly. She isn't sure what she expected in response, but it's not the sudden freeze from Ventress.

"Don't be stupid," Ventress says harshly. "The _only_ person you can ever really count on is you. Not the Jedi. Not your clones. Not your Master. Not even me." She holds Ahsoka's gaze firmly, barely blinking. "Listen to me, pet: you are on _your_ side."

Ahsoka nods, feeling raw and exposed and naive. Feeling, above all, like she misses _him_. She had taken him for granted, she thinks now, shut out and isolated in a bar full of happy drunk patrons and the closest thing she's got to a friend in the galaxy.

\

"You ever think about the boys?"

There's only ever one _boys_ , plural. And there's only ever one right answer with her. "Nah, not so much."

"Not even the one that was always making pathetic dew eyes at you?"

Ahsoka looks up from the ventilation filter she's working on cleaning while sitting on the floor. She smiles, sad but guarded, and replies, "You mean Rex?"

"Sure, love," Ventress asks. She's lying on her back on the floor, loosening the bolts of the ventilation shaft filter on the other side of the cockpit. "I'm impressed you could tell them apart. They always seemed like one giant, faceless, thinking mass to me."

Ahsoka winces but knows better than to get defensive. Ventress delights in mockery and she'll just make herself a target. "I liked them." She doesn't correct to the present tense, not anymore. "They each had their quirks, their personalities. That's how you remember."

"Of _course_!" Ventress says in over the top delight. "Like the one with the eye I took out. Which was that? That's a face to remember."

"Wolffe," she laughs. "Yeah, Wolffe. He was cute: I was into that scar."

Ventress puts the wrench down and cocks an elegant eyebrow at her. "How into?"

Ahsoka smirks, knowing this old routine. "Guess."

\

"How long are you going to be gone?" Ahsoka feels like a child for asking but she can't help it.

Ventress sighs. "I don't know; he just says it's big game. The money is good, Tano."

Ahsoka leans against their ship, fraught with worry. She has a bad feeling about this job, even worse because Ventress has to go _alone_. She thinks they're connected to the Jedi; whatever Ahsoka thinks, she's wants nothing to do with the Jedi ever again.

"Okay. See you soon."

But soon never comes. Ventress messages her; Vos was a Jedi ( _of course_ ), the target is Dooku ( _can she ever escape this stupid war?_ ) and things went sideways, now she has to rescue him ( _since when does Ventress rescue people without Ahsoka's cajoling?_ ).

Ventress never comes back the second time. The Jedi Council put a big show on at the temple, it's aired on television: her redemption, her salvation, her return to the _light_. Ahsoka slams her fist on the bar, shattering her scotch glass. They don't even know what blasphemy that is to them, to Ahsoka and Ventress. They looked at the two hands tearing the galaxy apart and slipped between its fingers. It was never about _light_ and _dark_ ; Ventress had taught her how to blend into the shadows, the space between.

Ahsoka pays for her drink and leaves, throwing a cloak over her. She avoids the news for many weeks later, making runs, doing what she's always been doing, although it's harder without a copilot and a bad cop to her good cop for negotiations or the cool feminine wiles Ventress projected so easily.

\

The war is over but not the way anyone expected it.

He's dead, isn't he? Ahsoka swallows, hand shaking as she reaches to turn up the radio transmission on the ship's headboard. _All Jedi dead on the scene, bodies to be identified_...

Anakin.

She tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep, dreaming of his voice. Maybe she could have helped, maybe they could've outrun the clones together, maybe she could have screamed sense into Rex before he pulled the trigger ...

Ahsoka doesn't sleep well for a very long time after that.

\

She has to learn to hide her power because the Empire is always, always looking for people like her. Thankfully, she's gotten good at not using them; it draws too much attention to someone who's made a career out of being unseen and quiet.

She can't believe she's meeting him, after all these years. She can't believe he's _alive_ ; that he even survived at all.

"Did you secure a ship?" Kenobi asks, ragged, dirty and tired, carrying a small bundle. The bundle whimpers.

"Who'd you knock up, Obi-Wan?" Ahsoka asks crassly, tossing her cigarette on the ground and stomping it out. It's a sign of his exhaustion that he only raises an eyebrow at this comment and does not reply.

"Did you secure a ship, Ahsoka?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ahsoka replies, tossing a montrail over her shoulder. She holds her arms out and wiggles her finger towards herself. "Can I hold him?"

Obi-Wan winces, looks around warily and says, "I don't know. It's dangerous."

"Oh come on, Obi Wan, this is _me_ , we're talking about. Besides, you look like you could use the break."

Reluctantly, he hands the child over. He looks like any other human baby for the most part; kinda ugly, in Ahsoka's opinion. Chubby and smooth skinned, weird toothless gums ... and fierce, intense eyes, even for a baby. For a moment, Ahsoka thinks she recognizes someone she's met before, but can't put her finger on it.

She juggles the baby in one arm and picks up Obi-Wan's bag, slinging it over her shoulder. Obi Wan does not protest under his cloak, hunched over. She's not sure if it's an act.

"Come on, this way," she begins walking, gesturing with her head to where she parked the untrackable ship.

It's quiet as they walk. Finally Obi Wan asks, almost tentatively, "You aren't ... going to ask about your old Master? About Anakin?"

"What's there to ask?" Ahsoka made up her mind a long time ago. She made up her mind the day she walked off the steps of the now dilapidated temple. "He's gone."

"Yes," Obi-Wan agrees, the mourning in his voice so deep and raw it's like it happened yesterday. "He is."

\

It is, of all people, Rex, who finds her, much later.

She is furious.

He is on the brink of being murdered behind a divey strip bar that Ahsoka occasionally dances at when she needs quick cash.

"Ahsoka," he pleads, wheezing under the power of her Force grip. "I _didn't_ kill him. I ... let me explain. Fives figured out what was happening before Order 66, I swear. You know I wouldn't!"

She scowls, too used to hearing excuses and rambling stories from people with the bad luck to cross her. She debates whether he is lying and decides she'll take her chances; Force or not, light saber or not, she can still crush a clone-bastard any day.

"You have one minute to explain yourself," she replies calmly.

"One minute?" he asks, rubbing his neck. "That's how long it'll take to feel my vocal chords again, kid."

Trash cans rattle when he hits the brick wall. The Force push knocked him clean against it but he doesn't black out. "I," she seethes, standing over him. "Am not a _kid_ anymore, Rex."

Rex groans and shakes his head. "No," he answers coldly. "I could see that much from your little dance number in there." He jerks his head to the fire exit of the strip club. His visceral tone surprises her.

So she's not the only one that's changed, she thinks, helping him up.

\

Back when Ventress had been around, Ahsoka had firmly been against smuggling arms. "We said we're on no one's side, right?" Ahsoka had insisted. "That means we're not selling these. They could end up on either side of the war and I don't want a part of that." Ventress had, characteristically, rolled her eyes but abided.

Now here she is, under the darkness on a stormy port, waiting for a shipment of precisely the kind she forbade Ventress from purchasing. Rex is beside her, on the comms link. "Black Hole to Nebula, the shipment is late. Make sure we're ready to go as soon as it arrives."

"These fucking rebels," Ahsoka seethes, peering through the scope of her sniper. "Are amateurs."

"They've never fought a war before," Rex rejoins calmly, handing her an unwrapped energy bar. "They're doing the best they can."

"Their best is going to get us killed," she mutters, chomping into the tasteless energy bar. It is another hour before the shipment finally arrives and Ahsoka has decided she's not taking any more jobs from this ridiculous so-called paramilitary outfit. She's got other jobs, better-paying jobs, with people who know the score. Fuck _this_.

\

She sees them before she hears them. A child crying - why, _why_ have children always been such a weak spot for her? - and Ahsoka doubles back, turns a corner, jumps a fence and is peering through a window. It's a poor neighbourhood - these days, under the Empire, most neighbourhoods are poor neighbourhoods - and the living room is badly lit.

A Twi'lek baby is being pulled from their mother's grasp, into the arms of some very unfriendly looking Stormtroopers.

"Back off," the lead storm trooper commands, shoving his gun in the mother's face. She doesn't back down and Ahsoka is proud of her, and scared for her. "You're lucky you're not arrested for hiding a Force-sensitive child. In fact, I'm starting to think I should change my mind. This is treason."

"Please," the mother implores. "She's _not_ Force-sensitive. I don't know what my neighbours reported but she never levitated _anything_ , she just threw it! She's just strong for her age!"

The storm trooper drops his gun to his side and moves closer, grabbing the woman's chin and examining her. "You know, I can always tell when someone is lying to me. It's about looking in their eyes." He tilts her head this way and that. He pauses and backs up. "All right," he says, and it should be comforting but Ahsoka is worried from his tone. "You _might_ be telling the truth." He turns to his fellow guards. "It's hard to tell with these fucking tailheads."

"Yeah," another agrees lazily. "That's why I never fuck Twi'lek girls. You never fucking know where they've been."

"Now wait just a moment," the lead says. "You've never fucked a Twi'lek? That's the one thing they _are_ good for."

Ahsoka feels sick and she drops down, squeezing her eyes shut. Not her problem, not her problem, not her problem ...

"We'll make you a deal, then," the lead stormtrooper's voice says. "You show me and the boys here a good time, some real fucking hospitality, and I might just let you keep your daughter. How's that?"

Ahsoka doesn't give her a chance to answer. She's through the window, clattering dishes, there's screaming and gunshots and a table is toppled for cover before anyone ever registers what happened. The mother acted first, sprinting and scooping up her child in the first few seconds of chaos.

There are three dead guards on the ground soon enough.

Ahsoka turns to the mother. "Get out of here. Head to Port Girshan - there's ... there's an outpost there, some people who can help you. Look for a man with dark skin and an eyepatch by the boat repair shop. The password is _kli'eresh_."

The woman doesn't move, clutching her child, gaping at Ahsoka.

"GO!" Ahsoka screams. "Get out! They will find you, they will blame you for these murders and they _will_ take your kid! Do I have to fucking ring a bell for you? Will you go faster if they're literally chasing you down the street?"

The woman nods and backs up slowly, hits the door, and runs. Ahsoka is breathing harder than she has in a long time, blood pounding, anger coursing through her. It takes a full minutes before she realizes that everything in the room is levitating from her unrestrained Force and she quickly reigns it in, household items clattering to the floor.

This is not the first time she's had to intervene. It's just not making a _difference_. What would Anakin do?

\

He would fight, she decides.

Rex agrees, handing her a rebel-encrypted datapad with the mission roster. "He'd be proud of you."

Anakin would never let the Empire bully these people, torture them, exploit the helpless. Maybe he wasn't perfect but he did what was _right_ , even when it was hard.

"You'll .. want these," Rex adds, handing her a satchel. She opens it and two light sabers roll out. Not _her_ sabers, but good ones. Well made, light, durable. Muscle memory kicks in and she unsheathes the laser, tossing the hilt so she's holding dragon form. Rex claps her on the shoulder and leaves, tells her to be ready at sundown.

When they conduct a raid on an Imperial supply ground, killing several guards along the way, that's what Ahsoka reminds herself. Anakin would not hold back.

\

"Our numbers are getting better," Ahsoka sighs, resting her palms on the desk. She's in what passes as their command center, their war room; the basement of a trusted ally, dimly lit and scattered with boxes of reports and data chips and electronics.

The source on the other side will only speak to Ahsoka these days. She says it's getting dangerous, that the Empire is getting more suspicious of Alderaan. "My father is sick," she insists. "I just don't want ..."

"If you want out," Ahsoka cuts her off wearily. "It's okay. We get it." Maybe there was a time when she would have given a rousing speech of fighting on and carrying the banner, but she knows better now.

"No!" the Alderaan princess exclaims. "That's not at all - I just meant, we'll have to hold off on delivery for a week or so. I need to be here for him; it would look odd for a daughter to leave her father's side while he's so ill ..."

Relief floods her and Ahsoka smiles for the first time all day. The Princess doesn't hold back either; Ahsoka thinks in another life, some other time, they could have been good friends.

\

Anakin doesn't hold back when she makes contact, years later, the feeling of the Force almost knocking her back. It can't be, it's not, he's dead ... Rex said, Obi-Wan said, _everyone_ said ...

The young padawan, the newcomer, looks at her with worried eyes. She's awake now, shaken and trembling. "Ahsoka?" Ezra asks her. "Are you all right? You blacked out there for a moment, I wasn't sure ..."

"Yes, Ezra, I'm all right," she says heavily, leaning back.

She wants to help the young one but right now, she doesn't know if she's fit to help anyone at all. She wants to answer his pleading eyes and acknowledge his questions but all she wants is answers for herself. She abandons everyone and locks herself away for days. Half a decade with the rebels and maybe she's still the selfish, lost bounty hunter that she was so proud of becoming.

"You might be," Hera replies when Ahsoka confides this fear. Hera hands her a warming cup of tea and settles beside her. They are alone and can speak openly, finally. "But ... maybe that's not a bad thing."

"You think so?"

"It's how you survived, Ahsoka," Hera says gravely. "Maybe it's what you have to be, at least a little." She probably doesn't realize it but Hera's words are terrifying to Ahsoka. She has to live with that little bit of darkness in her, forever, using it but never giving into it? Is that how Anakin saw it, too? Somewhere, distantly, she remembers a voice: _he's planted seeds of the dark side in you_.

\

But she can't be that selfish, not anymore. Not when he's looking _right at her_ with his mask half destroyed, his voice raspy but still recognizable. It's just one word but it completely, totally disarms her.

There were so many nights, so many long, calculated plans that should have been and almost were and she could have done this or that but ... he's here now. Right in front of her and light years away.

She's reckless. She would never have survived as Obi-Wan's padawan. She never would have survived as _anyone else's_ padawan.

This high up, powerful wind gusts over the floor and lifts her montrals and his cape. His stupid cape - when had he ever let himself become such a caricature of evil? Or the darkness? What _happened_ to the Anakin she left on those stairs?

"I'm not leaving you again," she says, loudly enough to be heard over the wind but not loud enough for the padawan and his blind master to hear. She might mean it more for herself than him; she's not sure.

"Then you will die."

The deafening crash of a stone wall coming down behind her secures the exit and she knows they're alone now. Gusts of dust come between them and he is breathing hard, wounded and on the floor.

"Is that right?" Ahsoka feels empowered, stronger than she's felt since the day she blacked out just by _sensing_ him. Her grip tightens on her sabers and she feels the heat of them through her skin and gloves.

He doesn't answer. No clever quip or snarky line back. Of course not; she doesn't know why she was hoping for it. Sliding one foot back, preparing into a pounce position, she reiterates."I'm _not_ a Jedi." She sees him clamber to his feet, the weight of his armour and cybernetics costing him dearly. She'd always been faster, more agile and nimble in a fight anyways. "But I'm all you fucking got. So get up."

"I told you," he hisses again, his eyes glowing yellow. "We need not be enemies. We are on the same side. The Jedi betrayed you as they betrayed Anakin Skywalker."

"We're not on the same side," she snaps back, watching him begin to move, circling her with his red lightsaber out. She can't explain how she feels at that exact moment, when everything seems to slow down. With equal parts sadness and satisfaction, she says with a steady voice: "I'm on _my_ side."

She lunges first.


End file.
